May 2002
At the helm of a new ship

We're happy to announce the official opening of Mastersuite. Our new 5.1 mastering suite is now completed and open for business. The room was designed and built with 5.1 surround sound and new media in mind, and the Quested monitoring system is breathtaking. We also have some special introductory rates for independent artists, so give us a call at 323-962-1002!

We're excited about how well our independent mastering clients are doing. A number have been signed to major labels and are achieving gold and platinum sales. Some of them have included:

We've been happy to see repeat business from several of them, and wish them all the best with their careers. We support independent music, so if you are an unsigned artist and want an advantage in a competitive and crowded marketplace, we offer discounted rates so that you can afford the same professional mastering that the major labels get.

Addendum: Congratulations to India.Arie on her seven Grammy nominations!

We are pleased to announce that we are building a new room. Jay has left his position as Director of Digital Media Services to build a new, independent mastering studio in Hollywood. He looks forward to leaving his administrative duties of the past year behind and getting back to engineering full time. The contractors are presently hard at work and we expect to be open for business by the end of the summer. We've added some new toys to the equipment list and will be adding still more before the opening date. Keep your eye on the gear page to see what's new. In the meantime, Jay has been working out of Sony Music Studios in Santa Monica while waiting for the new studio to be completed.

The new space is a collaborative with 5 studios total, the other four being a combination of pre-production and Pro-Tools suites manned by talented composers and engineers. The building is also connected to an established 2 room facility featuring a Solid State Logic 9000J console. Stay tuned for details which will be posted here as they become available.

In the fall of 1999, after a successful and satisfying experience in Atlanta, Jay moved his studio to Los Angeles and soon joined a large company as Director of Digital Media Services. The company provides music recording and mixing, audio and video post production, mastering, DVD production, and telecom for the entertainment industry. Since arriving in L.A., Jay has mastered several records, recorded and mixed several music projects, and mixed several short films, including "Hell Gig", starring Ed Begly Jr. and Steve Altman, and was lead re-recording mixer for the award winning feature film, "Punks", that premiered at Sundance 2000. His recent clients have included Babyface, Legal Grind/Antra Records, Giant Records and Clay Walker.

Studio A is undergoing a major upgrade right now to add DVD mastering and 5.1 surround sound. Slated to be finished by the end of February, the upgrade includes the brand new Sonic Solutions HDSP workstation, fully expanded including Dolby Digital 5.1 surround encoding, DVD mastering, multi-channel 24-bit / 96Khz high density audio, and 96Khz NoNoise. The new 5.1 surround monitoring system will consist of five identical hand made Italian audiophile speakers by the renown manufacturer, Sonus Faber, and a subwoofer from British high-end manufacturer, REL. These will be powered by Bryston 8B-ST and 3B-ST amplifiers, and a Studio Technologies 58/59 surround monitoring panel will handle surround source selection and monitoring functions. Don't worry, the wonderful Quested mains will be staying right where they are for the stereo work. Additional acoustic treatments and bass trapping are also being added.

Also slated to open in February will be a second, more budget-conscious CD mastering suite. The new Studio B will feature a Sonic Solutions CD pre-mastering workstation complete witrh the full NoNoise package. Analog outboard will be by Urei, and digital outboard will include a t.c.-electronic finalizer. Monitors will again be supplied by Sonus Faber, and amplification will be by Bryston.

New projects this month include repeat visits from Groovement / Earthseed records and Urban Grind. Arrested Development band leader, Speech, has been a regular at the studio since it's opening almost three years ago with an Arrested Development album of greatest hits, remixes, live tracks, and previously unreleased material, two solo albums, and a steady stream of Vagabond clients and Speech-produced artists. The new expanded American version of his latest solo album (released first in Japan) is having the finishing touches applied in the near future. Other interesting projects from the last several months include producer Alan "Grip" Smith (known for his production work with Kieth Sweat, Silk, and Xscape) using the studio to demo new productions for the head of A&R for Elektra Records. Also, Ghetto Concept's EMI Canada release and a project from New York rapper, Blaze, both mixed by Ken Lewis, came down from NYC for mastering.